OPSBA submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development (MAESD), to establish a three-year Ontario Labour Market Partnership initiative. The overall initiative is entitled, Meeting Labour Market Needs for French as a Second Language Instruction in Ontario and is designed to study labour market needs for French as a second language (FSL) instruction in the province.
This proposal was in response to concerns OPSBA member boards raised about the growing gap between the number of students enrolling in French language programs and the recruitment and retention of sufficient numbers of FSL teachers and support staff. This issue has become an increasing challenge for all English language public school boards in Ontario. As part of the labour market partnership process OPSBA joined with other committed education partners in a collaborative process to share knowledge, experience, expertise and conduct research to generate workable solutions to this labour market issue.
During 2017-18, OPSBA proceeded (with MAESD approval) with a one-year project entitled, Understanding Perspectives Regarding the French as a Second Language Teacher Labour Market Issue. Based on the completion of the deliverables for this project and the ongoing commitment from all of the education partners, OPSBA has again applied to MAESD to continue with this initiative for 2018-19.
The report from the first year of the French as a Second Language Ontario Labour Market Partnership Project is now available – Understanding Perspectives Regarding the French as a Second Language Teacher Labour Market Issue.
